Happy Anniverary Calico Cutters

This week was the 25th anniversary of my quilt guild, Calico Cutters.  We had a celebration during our annual auction.  Our auction is our biggest fundraiser, which is a necessity to help pay for our monthly speakers. 

Here are a bunch of our past presidents who are still members. Thank goodness for volunteers.

Our favorite auctioneer, Christine Kamon did a fabulous job, infusing humor with her money raising skills.

And a bunch of silent auction items.

To help celebrate our 25th, we had a postcard challenge/swap. 

 We had 36 participants and the postcards were all so creative.

This one with the birds is mine.  The threads in the background are couched. 

 It's my new favorite technique.

 The sunflower postcard belongs to Kelly Meanix of www.pinkadotquilts.blogspot.com 

It looks a little familiar.

 Linda McCormick's awesome first postcard.

I didn't make a note of who made the waterlily, but it's wonderful.

 Great flowers by Christine.

And one more flower by Terry Kramzar.

I wish I could share them all.

Since it was a swap, each postcard was put in a paper lunch bag and everyone  who brought a postcard, got to o home with one.

Kudos to everyone, especially our members who broke out of their comfort zone.

So what happened to Wednesday's  Wanderings this week?  I am hanging my head in shame.  In a few days I am leaving for the Spring wholesale quilt market.  This year it is in Kansas City.  The good news is that I have several opportunities to promote my book.  On Thursday, I am doing a Schoolhouse.  This is a 1/2 hr presentation in front of about 100 shop owners.  For my presentation, I decided to show the unique way I construct my pieces, in addition to the projects in the book.  I chose one of my favorite photos:

From L to R: My BIL, my husband and my FIL, fishing at our lake house in the Poconos.

and created an embellished beauty in 8 steps.  They call these step outs.  It's like when you watch a cooking show.  They put an unbaked casserole in the oven and pull out a finished one.  This is the finished piece.

It would make a great Father's Day present.  Hmmmmm.

I Love Blue

Blue is my favorite color. I love everything blue. I try to control myself and not make every room in my house blue. Sometimes blue is a popular color for decorating and sometimes it is not. It seems to go in and out of favor. It is the same with quilting fabric. So I try to keep a nice assortment in my studio stash so that I can always find some. I have even filled a big plastic bag with lots of my blue and white fabric with the intention of making a few scrap quilts.

When I saw the newest Karen Combs' fabric collection called Midnight Blue, Riverwoods, I knew I had to have some. I loved every single fabric. And they were perfect for the winter themed project for the The Quilt Life that I had been asked to design.

Here's a little sneak peek. I had a lot of fun doing some embellishing. I found some gorgeous rick rack in an etsy shop. I couched metallic thread to get the feel of snow. Look for the entire project this fall.

Today is also the day I am to choose the winner of Sew Embellished! I put the names in a hat and pulled out the winners name. Congratulations to:

Martina of Basil, Switzerland!!

Starting tomorrow, the book blog tour will continue. Visit Kelly at

www.pinkadotquilts.blogspot.com

Wednesday's Wanderings #19 - Here Comes the Bride

"Shut up, show up and wear beige!" 

 That's the advice I was given  by my friends as I became mother of the groom.  Keeping my mouth closed has been very hard for me, but I have tried my best.  I can easily show up.  Wearing beige is another story.  To tell you the truth, with about 8 weeks until the wedding, I have still not gone shopping  for my outfit yet.  Can we say procrastination?  Or can we say, maybe I can still lose a few pounds? It's on my to do list.

So I was pleasantly surprised when the bride asked me to take her and her mother to the fabric district in Philly to shop for the makings of a veil.  The fabric district in Philly is a mere shadow of itself.  Every time I go, there are fewer and fewer fabric stores.  They are now replaced by a variety of shops including bicycle shops, a consignment shop and a custom made shoe shop.

We did find a shop that I had never seen before:

As we entered the store, we saw these amazing headpieces that looked like they could have been in theater productions.

The owner, Patricia, said come on in and play.  Try on whatever you want and see what you like. She was so sweet and so helpful that we could not avoid  playing dress-up. Many of the headpieces she created herself.  It was quite an experience for the mother of 2 boys!

Patricia and Loren

 

Patricia was so generous with her knowledge.  Loren's mother bought a lovely, simple headpiece.  Patricia then  explained how to make a veil out of 2 yards of bridal illusion, which was bought for $3.00/yd.  This made Loren very happy.

You cannot go to buy fabric without eating at the 4th Street Deli.  You only have to park your car once.  It's that close.  But you have 3 choices when deciding what to order.

1.  Have a hearty appetite

2.  Share your meal

3.  Bring half of your sandwich home for your husband for dinner

At the end of your meal, they hand you a styrofoam take home box and a warm chocolate chip cookie.  And although you are stuffed at this point, the cakes at the check out counter are so tempting, but could feed a family of 4!

Sew Embellished! Give-A-Way

To celebrate the publication of Sew Embellished!, we are having a blog tour.  Eleven bloggers are involved and you will have the opportunity to visit each of their blogs over the next 11 weeks to win a copy of Sew Embellished!  However, if you cannot wait, you can always go to your local quilt shop or Amazon to buy a copy now.  Or if you want a signed copy from me, head to my etsy shop.

In the book I have shared many of the techniques that I use to personalize my quilts.  I feel like I have said so much of this before, so without further ado, leave a comment and let me know if you have done any embellishing before or if this will be your maiden voyage.  REMEMBER that your comment must have an address where I can reach you.  Sometimes the address is a no reply blogger address.  You can have 2 chances to win if you are one of my Followers or if you sign on as a new follower.  I will be picking the winner next Sunday, May 6th.

Here is the list of blogs that are participating in the tour.  There are a variety of quilters and artists and I think you will enjoy the blogs if you haven't already visited.  You can enter to win a book at each stop.

May 7 Kelly Meanix www.pinkadotquilts.blogspot.com

May 14 Bea Lee www.beaquilter.blogspot.com

May 21 Lisa Quintana www.michigoose-life-quilts.blogspot.com

May 28 Margarita www.margascrafts.blogspot.com

June 4 That Patchwork Place http://blog.shopmartingale.com/

June 11 Debbie www.debbiesfiberwork.blogspot.com

June 18 Diane www.yarngoddess.wordpress.com

June 25 Kathy Loomis www.artwithaneedle.blogspot.com/

July 5 Darlene www.sewcalgal.blogspot.com

July 9 Karen Musgrave www.connectionsbyKaren.blogspot.com

July 16 Cheryl Sleboda www.muppin.com

Happy Independence Day Israel!

It is the 64th anniversary of the formation of the state of Israel. To celebrate, our synagogue is having a get together of the members that traveled to Israel  in February, after Friday night services tonight. Part of the celebration includes a slide show of our trip. Another part of the celebration will include the display of my fiber book about the trip.

If you read my Wednesday's  Wanderings during my trip, you may recognize a couple of the pages.

ISRAEL  book cover

Page 1.  Inside Independence Hall.  Take note of the sheckels in the organza pouch.

Page 2.  In celebration of a Shabbat dinner at an Israeli home.

Page 3.  I fell in love with mosaics during the trip.
 This is my version based on a mosaic in Acco, at Or Torah.

Page 4.  Old City of Jerusalem

Page 5.  Planting of trees with the Jewish National Fund.

Page 6.  Map of Israel with many of the locations we visited.

Book Overview

I also decided to make a piece to thank our fearless leader and rabbi. It included our group photo at the independence Museum, a few photos printed on fabric and a couple of scheckels stitched on.

Thank you Rabbi Riegler for sharing your view of Israel with me.

Scheckels stitched to the piece.

The Fun Has Begun

The fun has begun. 

 Martingale has a new blog called Stitch This! 

 I love this name and I also love their new whimsical bird logo. 

 Today's post is about Sew Embellished!, my book!!!

 Jenny did such a wonderful write-up that it makes me want to start a new project.  Take a look and enter to win a free book!

Stitch This!

Wednesday's Wanderings #18 - Sew Embellished!

If you have been anywhere near me, my quilt guild or my blog within the last month or so, you know that this is the day that I have been waiting for.  My book has arrived!!!

 

In it I share the techniques I use to personalize my quilts.  It also has directions for some small projects that I call "embellished beauties". 

WW's topic has to be the arrival of my books, even though travel is my usual theme.  It needs to be in the finished quilt as one of the milestones of 2012.   I have hesitated putting a person with a face on a block.  Faces are not easy, especially when they are neckless!  But I wanted to share my jubilation.

Please let me know if you have found Sew Embellished! useful, informative and fun. I hope it is everything I wrote it to be.